News Corp. has just announced its iPad-only newspaper The Daily will be closed down. What do you know, a platform-specific publication fails in the internet era. I totally did not see this coming at all. Times are changing, people. Platform-specific is so 2007.

You're misrepresenting things by interpreting "available on Galaxy Tab 10.1 using Verizon Wireless" as android fragmentation. It's like blaming Apple if an app is available only for the 3G version of iPad 2 with 32 GB flash. It's an arbitrary, plain stupid restriction.

Now, if the app was available only for Android A.B with a minimum resolution of X by Y, this would be a fragmentation issue, but this isn't.

Nonsense. The Daily is a large format-only tablet app. Back in January of this year, what are the numerous Android 10" tablets that The Daily should have been made for? Before this year, what should The Daily have been targeting for 10" tablets? The fact is: the vast majority of Android apps that target tablets largely only support a small number of devices because they're the only ones being sold in any number (and even than not very well compared to iPads).

To say, this isn't a fragmentation is beyond reason: every single day an app developer decides to target a subset of Android devices and they state the reasoning being that it is too costly and expensive to try to support all of the devices across all of the versions. That is the definition of fragmentation.

Also, I post a clear refutation of Thom's claim from nearly a year ago, but do I know if The Daily remains exclusively supported on the Tab or that it doesn't actually run on non-supported tablets? No, because I don't care. But I've already done about 200% more fact checking on this story than the person who wrote it so I'll leave that to you and everyone else who disagrees with me...

Back in January of this year, what are the numerous Android 10" tablets that The Daily should have been made for?

There were a couple of Asus Transformer tablets, and at least one or two from Acer as well, along with the Motorola Xoom. I don't know what other ones were out at the time. What I do know is that the Transformer Prime was the 'flagship' tablet when it was first released.

Based on the text of the link, it says the paper was available through 'select tablets on Verizon wireless', which leads me to believe that it wouldn't have worked on a wifi-only Galaxy Tab. That sounds like somebody struck a deal, rather than some sort of technically-based fragmentation issue.

BTW: I'm not saying that it failed because it wasn't widely available on Android, and probably would've flopped even if it were.

The fact is: the vast majority of Android apps that target tablets largely only support a small number of devices because they're the only ones being sold in any number

Ooooh, a fact? Okay then, name one (waiting....).

Also, I post a clear refutation of Thom's claim from nearly a year ago

No, it's clear that - like most iFanboys - you were just determined to flog that "Android fragmentation" dead horse, relevancy be damned. So you cherry-picked a single minor detail, found a single exception to fixate on, and now you're trying to pretend that you've won some kind of significant victory.

If that weren't pathetic enough, you're also trying to pretend that fragmentation due to technical issues is the same thing as "fragmentation" due to exclusivity agreements. That's on par with trying to criticize Microsoft for the fact that Final Cut "Pro" doesn't run on Windows.

It's like blaming Apple if an app is available only for the 3G version of iPad 2 with 32 GB flash.

Funny though, that has never happened, but Android apps specifically limit support to individual devices all the time. I guess Android developers are just "stupid and arbitrary" and it has nothing at all to do with fragmentation, right?

"It's like blaming Apple if an app is available only for the 3G version of iPad 2 with 32 GB flash.

Funny though, that has never happened, but Android apps specifically limit support to individual devices all the time. I guess Android developers are just "stupid and arbitrary" and it has nothing at all to do with fragmentation, right? "

It usually happens because of licensing deals (eg different Android partners competing for individuality by obtaining exclusivity for x, y and z).

As someone who's written a few Android apps in the past, I can tell you that the "fragmentation" isn't half as big of an issue as many make out. Or at least not on the standard paradigms (phones and tablets). AFAIK none of my apps have ever ran on the more abstract of Android-powered devices.

You see, Android's SDK was written to take such things into account (unlike how iOS, which couldn't cope with even the basics like differing aspect ratios). So while it does take a little more time refining an Android app for multiple platforms, it's still possible and done so daily by the vast majority of Android developers.

In fact I still use one of my Android 2.2 apps daily on a host of tablets and phones running Android 4.0. I'd long since lost the source code and never bothered to rewrite it as it still runs so well.

However please don't assume I'm trying to gloat about how everything is perfect; I'm not saying there isn't fragmentation on Android, but I think many haters love to exaggerate the problem (much like how Apple haters loved to exaggerate the issues of the iPhone 5 carbon casing getting scratched or the left-handed reception issues on the iPhone 4).

tl;dr: 99% of Android developers manage just fine. The examples you're thinking of are largely where licensing deals are struck as different Android partners compete for individuality.